In the 21th century, medical engineering will surely be recognized as one of the most important fields of science and technology. The Center for Frontier Medical Engineering (CFME) was founded in April 2003 through the strong cooperation of the School of Medicine, the Chiba University Hospital, the Faculty of Engineering and various industries. The CFME was reorganized in April 2010 and now consists of the Department of Research and Development which has both permanent and visiting professors, the Department of Project Promotion in which CFME staff members and researchers throughout the organization collaboratively conduct research projects, and the Prototyping and Preclinical Research Laboratory in which new ideas are prototyped and tested in order to accelerate their development for early clinical applications. Research projects are classified into three levels according to their scale and level of establishment: leading research project, emerging research project and tryout research project. Currently, there are three ongoing leading research projects (placed as key projects of CFME), namely: (1) Water-filled laparo-endoscopic surgery (WaFLES) (2) Research on non-invasive multi-modal brain measurements and analyses (3) Fusion and enrichment of medical imaging for high quality diagnosis and treatment (FERMI) The objective of the CFME is to establish and offer novel medical devices and/or systems that contribute to future advancement of clinical practice. During the last seven years, several products have been released, including a numerical phantom of the human body for evaluating SAR (specific absorption rate), ergonomic scissors for surgery, and image processing software for endoscope and ultrasound images to boost diagnostic accuracy. These products were evaluated as to their clinical usefulness through repeated experiments done inside the CFME. Harmonious cooperation between medical and engineering staff members is a powerful driving force in the CFME and one of its outstanding characteristics; through this cooperation useful products for clinical practice will continue to be developed.

Publication

Annual Report of Center for Frontier Medical Engineering, Chiba University (Published in Japanese)